Wonder why the air force isn't 'spec-ops', EVERYONE else seems to be?
 Fred is usually great. Ghost


Poor Widdle Fings!

The Killer Instinct In The Modern Air Force
 
I discover, through a story by Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times,* that military catastrophe has overtaken the US Air Force in Afghanistan, and is being concealed from the American public. Complaints of inhuman conditions from troops at the air base at Bagram are frightening. Insiders at the Pentagon speak quietly of imminent withdrawal, perhaps even mutiny. Specifically:


It's because the Air Force has damp laundry.

Yes. Not really soggy but, well, humid. Morale is plummeting. This and other hardships are chronicled in a series of photographs from Afghanistan obtained by Scarborough.

The Times quotes an airman regarding the laundromat, "Unfortunately, they recycle their water too many times, and they do not ensure your clothes are completely dry. Therefore, when your wadded-up, bagged clothes are placed back in the bin, they sit there."

Grim. One thinks of the siege of Stalingrad, of Napoleon's retreat from Russia when men dropped, spent, in the snow to die, or the Death March of Bataan. Yet those were not as terrible as things faced daily at Bagram. None of those men had to endure damp laundry.


Of course, one might wonder what bagged clothes are expected to do when placed in a bin, other than sit there. Clothes by their nature are not very active, sharing the world view of tree sloths. Suppose they had gotten up and wandered off. The airmen would have had to spend time catching them. Would this have been better for the war effort?

There is worse. "Troops sleep in crowded tents, work out in inadequate fitness centers and volleyball courts, and squeeze into small bathrooms. Lines are long at the base exchange and the chow hall."


The country never learns. The Marines storming ashore at Iwo Jima also had inadequate volleyball courts. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a serve over the net in the sand of a tropical island? It's all very easy for us at home to get by without adequate volleyball courts. We can endure long lines at the sushi bar, since we are not subject to the stress of war. It's different in a combat zone. Men need the best in sports equipment.

A worrisome question: How much time do these fellows spend squeezing into small bathrooms?

The Air Force unit at Bagram was not identified, but sounds like the 22nd Tutu Repair Battalion. The story mentioned runways. The airmen in question may be runway models. This will not surprise Marines, who have long suspected as much. I do not doubt that our airmen, damp though they be, strike fear into the hearts of the Afghans, twelfth-century peasants who can live for months in deep snow with minimal clothing, eating half-decayed meat, and sodomizing young boys slow enough to be caught.


Reports Scarborough, "Air Force troops have grown accustomed to some of the best amenities when they deploy to far-off lands. They often are bedded down in air-conditioned tents, enjoy televisions and modern fitness centers, and eat the best chow."

And now they don't. The shock to their delicate systems must be deplorable. It must be almost like being in the military.

Actually there was some doubt in journalistic circles as to whether these killers wanted air-conditioners or hair conditioners, and perhaps skin lotions. No one denies, however, that conditions are gruesome. Combat zones are like that. A photo obtained by the Times shows a woman brushing her teeth in a small bathroom. The caption says, "One sink and three showers for all the women in the AF village." One gathers that when an airperson hears that war is hell, she thinks it means being out of range of a flush toilet.

Some of the accounts are gut-wrenching. (I've always wondered what a gut wrench might be.) A devastating hardship in Bagram, the kind that wears a man down until he loses the will to live, and lies down, and expires on the spot, is long lines for breakfast. Our warriors complain, "You wait through the line even if you just want to grab cereal, milk and fruit."

It's more than flesh can bear. Think of it. Even if you don't want eggs, you still have to wait. You get up in the morning, looking forward to a bowl of Tootsie Wootsie Pops, and I'll bet all they have is corn flakes. But you still have to stand there. I'd be tho mad!

Other perils stalk the unwary fly-person. "The dust is about two inches thick on the road, the consistency of talcum powder. Doesn't brush off. Just sticks to you. Gets up your nose, in your eyes and mouth. You cannot get away from it."

Marines I knew in Viet Nam came close to tears over dust. I remember one hardened veteran sobbing quietly to himself, "I can't stand it. It just ruins my nails. I can't do anything with them. Dust."

It isn't right. If we can't put our devil dogs and doggesses in a hotel with decent room service, we shouldn't send them to strange places where there might be fighting.

We owe them better. The answer might be Mall Simulation Companies to give our lethal emissaries the surroundings they are used to. Maybe an inflatable Gap store, a video arcade (but no games with violent themes), and a hangout with really comfy seats--just like in Patton's army.

Little things mean so much to troops dealing with dust that doesn't brush off. We could add diapers to their MREs and maybe a security blanket and a rattle. Perhaps a squad of Combat Damp-Laundry Grief Counselors would help the afflicted understand that they are still Good Persons, and that it's OK to have feelings about that yucky damp feel. A suicide hotline is imperative.

I remember a paragraph from The Sharp End, a book about the daily life, and death, of soldiers in WW II, as for example the disadvantages of being trapped in a tank:

"A tank that is mortally hit belches forth long searing tongues of orange flame from every hatch. As ammunition explodes in the interior, the hull is racked by violent convulsions and sparks erupt from the spout of the barrel like the fireballs of a Roman candle. Silver rivulets of molten aluminum pour from the engine like tears...When the inferno subsides, gallons of lubricating oil in the power train and hundreds of pounds of rubber in the tracks and bogey wheels continue to burn, spewing dense clouds of black smoke over the funeral pyre." I wonder whether the 22nd Tutu Repair are quite ready for this.

*October 30, 2002

©Fred Reed 2002
Nekkid In Austin!

This is old news...

If the Army and Marines bitched as much as us AF guys they would have nice living conditions too !!!! It's not the AF fault you live in tents a couple of days a year without AC.............

So tell us Ghost556, where and how do you serve this great nation? hmmm? Lets hear it!!

The Air Force is never going to be able to live this one down, RipMeyer.  We all love the AF, but this is just too rich.

STFU

This is just stupid now.

AeroE: You just reinforce it."Sticks and stones"
Edited to say:
Aeroe's previous post, before editing, said somthing like: "These attacks on the Airforce have gone too far"
Those are not his exact words, my paraphrase.

Freakin Zoomies....   Aww c'mon..  I gotta get them jabs in when I can.

Actually although the AF did kill more Marines in the Gulf than the Iraqis did, I really don't blame them for that, blue on blue is a reality of war.  Mistakes happen and those were the result of mistakes.  What I cannot forgive is there current insistence of not breaking 10,000 AGL in order to prevent small arms, LADA damage to their aircrafts.  Sorry I can forgive mistakes, but not putting the aircrafts and crews safety about ground troops that they are there to support is just wrong.

DoubleFeed - I love you, man - but wake up!!!!!!

MCAW and Navy planes cost just as much.

The difference is in the AFs battlefield doctrine.

They do NOT care as much about the guys on the ground as USMC/Navy ground support does.

Period.

Anyone says different is full of shit.

Ask a grunt - Army or Marine.

***I DO thank each and every USAF member for their service.  This is a problem with leadership and doctrine, not neccessarily USAF personnel.

It has absolutely nothing to do with safety of the ground troops or providing more accurately delivered fires, but to protect planes.  To me that is poor BS, if they are required to get low in order to engage than they need to get low.

Didn't mean to offend at all - hope I didn't, DF.  Just pointing out that your guess on cost was off the mark.  The AF certainly ain't worried about money - they got **deep** pockets.  "That part is old - replace it."  "That part is scratched - replace it."  I was just trying to make the point that money has nothing to do with it.


haven't slept since Sunday around noon - I'm goofy

All 3 services receive about the same amount of $$$.  Army has the most people, the most bases, more aircraft than the USAF (almost all helos)and more boats than the USN (although they are mostly little).  USN - ships are friggin expensive to operate.  Ships live in a hostile, corrosive environment, and not a lot of commercial products crossover to maritime use.  USAF gets roughly the same amount of dough, but even with billion dollar bombers, they don't have anywhere near the operating expense that the other services have.  They also do a much better job of telling Congress that if they don't have X they can't do Y.  Can't speak for the army, but the navy is still in fear that we will be declared obsolete by an unknowing congress (like almost happened following WWII).  Hence, we screw our people with less than satisfactory living conditions and a high deployment tempo.  That's OK though - we are all volunteers and we asked to be here.  All things being equal though, I will ALWAYS take an AFB over an NAS on a cross country - so many more amenities.

I guess you have never heard of or had SAR take care of you!!  Wake Up.

Which do you mean? Those Army Aviators that picked up the USAF F-16 pilot in the Gulf War, or the Marine Corps Aviators that picked up the F-16 pilot in Bosnia?[:D]

Ross

On another thread about this topic, Garand_shooter posted some great information regarding the effect of USAF creature comforts affecting the 'logistical tail' of our deployments. It was so good, I saved it. I fail to give a shit how well the zoomies live, EXCEPT WHEN IT HINDERS COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS.
From Garand-shooter:
I asked my bud who just returned fron Afganistan last month about this. He deployed last January, his NG MP Company ran the detention facilities at Kandahar and Bagram.

He said that the AF living conditions were 100 times better than the Army. The AF guys got 2 hot meals a day, while they got 1 hot meal every 2 days. He said almost every C-130 coming in brought 10-20 cold pizzas in from whatever airfield it was coming from. The AF guys ahd a chance to take a shower every day, although it might be an hour or so wait in line, they got one once every week, and even then they had to use the Canadian facility.

They finally got wood floors for thier tents by stealing the wood from the AF, who continued to fly it in for thier troops but swore they didn't have the airlift capability to bring it in for anyone else.

Among the things he saw flown in were cappachino (sp?) machines, a big screen TV, actual beds with matress's, soda fountains, refills for the soda fountains, and many other things.

The kicker is, the whole time the AF was flying all these luxury items, his deployment kept being extended because the AF was claiming they lacked the airlift capability to get the replacemnet unit over there in time.

So becasue the whiners had to have big screen TV, soda, real bunks, and other pussy gear he spent 3 extar weeks away from his family.


On a lighter note, the last transfer my USAR unit got from the Air Guard lasted exactly 1 day after the first time he went to the field with us. He actually thought the whole thing was some kind of initiation joke for new guys, once he realized we actually lived like that it scared him to death, he left the unit the next day.

captainpooby

I am missing the drift of your comment.  Whose sticks and whose stones?

And BTW, the gist of what I said is that enough is enough.  Life isn't fair, and besides, since 1973 it's been a volunteer service, so everyone that has entered since then picked their own bed.  At any rate, don't quote me here unless you have the exact words.

I'm with STLRN on this.  The higher the AF goes, they are less dangerous to the enemy and more dangerous to friendlies.

Yes the AF cant possiably have an SAR. Right?

All you can come up with? 2 rescues? Shit even a pig flys once in awhile!! For every 1 the marines and army do I bet the AF does 8 to 10.

A couple of pansies at Bagram got caught wearing pink underwear with ruffle trim.  They complained beyond the chain of command about getting sand on their clit.  

[b]BIG DEAL!  The other branches of the service already knew the vast majority of the Air Force was a bunch of wimps with over blown visions of their own intellectual capacity, coupled with the ingrained cultural belief of "We are too good to do 'THAT' for a living" .[/b]

What I personally find faintly amusing yet completely revolting is the responses of some board members in their pathetic attempts to defend a bunch of cry baby Mamma's boys.  From the look of things, I would not be surprised to find out that RipMeyer and AeroE were two of the individuals responsible for the pictures and the oh so thoughtful captioning of the "squalid" living conditions at Bagram.

That's not thunder.  That's General Curtis LeMay and Captain Lance Sijan rolling over in their graves.

DPeacher

I question your integrity as an American.
Nothing but frothy shit flows from your mouth.
Why do you insist on bad mouthing the entire AF? The AF has made GREAT SIGNIFICANT contributions the this wonderful nation. [b]Because we are not ground pounders does not make our contribution ANY LESS THAN ANY OTHER SERVICE.[/b]

RipMeyer,  that is uncalled for and lacking in integrity, honor, and maturity.

Yes the Air Force has made allot of contributions to this nation. And those that serve have contributed to the nation. But not all contributions are equal, I think those that go into  battle and actually face deaths, from what ever service, contribution is much greater than those that remain behind the lines and fill administrative and logistics functions.  So those who worry about taking a 7.62 to the chest or piece of frag to the leg in my eyes contributed allot more than those whose only worry is having to wait in line too long for cereal and only 1 bottle of water.

Hmm..I don't see you complaining about posting FLAT out lies and degrading an ENTIRE branch of service who have thousands of distinguished members.

To your soft and weak sensibilities, I'm sure my words are quite upsetting.  My words are, nonetheless, the unvarnished truth.

I don't hear the other services whining about dust, volley ball nets, getting two hot meals and a shower everyday, living in tents and getting laundry service.  Especially those stationed in a war zone.

I see your true colors shining through...

Two fuckin guys complained. Get over it. The entire AF is not like that.

BTW my colors are RED WHITE AND BLUE. More than I can say for you. (hey I am a poet[:D])

Rip

The problems whether the whole Air Force is this way or not the perception by the other services is that they are.  Why does is the perception that way, because we see how your service seems obsessed with creature comforts, even when getting those creature comforts to the theater is at the expense of combat capability of the other services who are required to share lift space.

The exact same problem exist when it comes the AF and its support of maneuver forces, they want to impose restrictions inorder to safe guard plane and pilot, putting the lives of those on the ground in danger.  Whether you like or not allot of the perceptions of the air force are a result of your services own mistakes.

So you hate the Air Force. Where the fuck did you serve?  I happen to be one of the million guys in the Air Force that is not complaining.  I happen to have served in the desert, in the tropics and Korea.  I also spent the cold war years freezing my ass off on a northern tier base.

I have spent more time outdoors than a dozen Army pukes and is worse weather.  Nothing sickens me more than another low I.Q. grunt trying to prove his low I.Q. job is hard.  My dog lives outside just fine,,it cant fix a plane worth a crap though...........

Blow me Army puke,,,,,,,

No I don't hate the AF, my father is a retired AF Col and my sister was medically retired from the AF when she was a Cpt.  But I find it funny that the AF always talk about how high their GTs are and no one in the other services can match them (which is untrue anyone who has worked in MEPS can tell you that), although the Navy and Marine Corps have an air wing with the exact same type of aircraft requiring the exact same type of maintenance and the Army has rotor wing fleet larger than the AF fixed wing fleet which in itself requires similar levels of maintenance.  Yet they are able to maintain and fly them without the attention to creature comforts.

Also don't assume that your the smartest people in the military either, GT score requirement thought the services are pretty comparable, ever service has their high and low jobs.  But we don't have an almost little man syndrome about our military acumen.  

By the way I'm not in the army.

I have a somewhat unique, for a Marine, experience with the Air Force.  For my first 8 years I was an Aircraft Weapons Systems Specialist on F-4's and F/A-18's.  For the last 3 of those 8 years, I was stationed at MAG-41, Det. A, Andrews AFB.  Prior to that I had attended 3 Green Flags at Nelis/Cactus Springs, and spent several weeks at both Kadena and Misawa.

From my personal observations, made on a daily basis over a period of years, I will stand firm in my conclusion that the vast majority of Air Force personnel are nothing more then a bunch of pampered Mama's Boys.

I'm a cadet with AFROTC, and I do take the shit slung towards the Air Force as being absurd.

Although, as a cadet I see some of the root causes for the attitudes that everyone seems to take issue with.

Anyhow to diffuse the tensions, check this out.

http://www.geocities.com/katana16j/Aforg.gif

Thats from one of the Powerpoint presentations given at the AFROTC Classes, the AF has a good sense of humor about itself.

Well well!  Regale us with your vast experience and tales of daring do!  Did you by chance nick yourself shaving last week?

Go into the light carrol ann.

Your skewed perception of reality is way off.
#4 yes that's [b]Very Professional[/b]. You couldn't buy a clue.


BTW this site has a spell checker!! Ground Pounder.

Didn't a couple of F-15E's keep the Rangers alive on Roberts Ridge in Afganastan?

Here is a numbers game you can not win.

More US Marines earned the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima than in any other battle in US History.

In 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 US casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded).

Of these, 6,825 American boys were killed. Virtually all 22,000 Japanese perished.

The Navy and Marine effort provided a vital link in the U.S.chain of bomber bases. [b]By war's end, 2,400 B-29 bombers carrying 27,000 crewman had made emergency landings on Iwo Jima.[/b]

In the Gulf War [b]US ground units[/b] launched seventeen inadvertent attacks on American and British ground forces. These attacks killed eighty-one Americans and two Britons. Seventeen misguided attacks also destroyed twenty-seven US MlAl tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles--fully seventy-seven percent of the Army's materiel losses.

Seems marines and army guys dont like each other!! So dont start saying things like you AF guys do nothing but kills us ground pounders.

DPeacher

You've got a big mouth.  I didn't take the pictures at Bagram - I finished my service in 1979.  The worst deployments I ever suffered were a month in a hangar (constant cold, constant 24 hour per day racket from the diesel generator and 3 400 hz motor-generators) during a 1st TFW ORI, and Red Flags at Nellis (hotter than hell).  We  slept wherever we could stay out of the way - no cots, no AC, no heaters (except for light stands and equipment exhaust, woo hoo!), and K-rations.  We bitched and complained just like every US GI since the Revolution.  Big Deal.  I got over it.

No one ever shot at me, however I was armed part of the time in case they did.

I did my job to the best of my ability and lead and coach my crews to be the best technicians in my squadron that would ever work on an airplane.  That was our mission.

I have an Honorable Discharge to prove it; it aint much, I guess, but that's what I have.

By the way, I don't ever remember a Soldier, Sailor, or Marine ever pushing back from the chow hall at any air force base I was ever on - funny how that works.

If you don't like the way the USAF deploys support for soldiers on the ground, don't bitch at the vets on this board, write the politicians, bureaucrats, and career officers that determine the rules of engagement.  I agree that suppression by dropping bombs from high altitude is a piss poor method, and I agree that the USMC is doing it right - they get down in the dirt and lay down the bombs scant yards away from their riflemen if that is required for protection.

I just don't see the point in continued beating of this dead horse.  Especially if you can't do anything to change the staus quo (at least I know I can't do much about it).  It would make more sense to bitch about the gulf in the treatment of enlisted men and the officer corps - talk about an outmoded organization scheme.

My AIT for the Army was on a Air Force base. They know how to take care of their people. It was an absolute shock coming from Army Basic and screaming Drill Sergeants to an AFB. The SDNCO came out to the airport to pick us up in a nice g-ride. In civilian clothes. With his kids. He thought we were wound up too tight (as all recent BCT graduates are), so he stopped to buy us a beer. Straight to the "dorms," which had 2-man spacious rooms, carpet and AC and co-ed (and I hadn't even seen a woman for 10-weeks, except for the elderly Korean women in the mess hall, and THEY were starting to look good). They told me to be at formation on Monday morning (Thursday afternoon of a long weekend) and that I couldn't leave post without a pass, but since I was new, to take off anyway.

Our barracks were nicer than most of the Army barracks I ever stayed in. They were "condemned" by the Air Force, but good enough for the Army pukes.

I was very confused the first few times I ate in the "Dining Facility." Great food, by the way, and don't call it "chow" or you'll make the manager cry. Anyway, I was confused, because I couldn't figure out where to put my tray and dirty dishes when I was done. The "trick" was that there wasn't anywhere to put them. They actually had civilians whose job it was to pick up the dirty dishes, like in a real restaurant. And all this for snot-nosed trainees (like me).

And the Air Force chicks...good time to be 18 and in your prime. If I only knew what I do now...it would have been even better, and it was pretty danged good then.

In the field, the Air Force can tend towards the ridiculous, though. Like the AF guys attached to us showing up for a deployment to another continent without weapons, or the AF guys who didn't understand how to load their rifles. AF guys refusing dig fighting positions or go to stand-to because it was "dirty." The AF CAS/weather unit that brought three expando vans full of creature comforts and only one van full of equipment to team Spirit. When the CG (3-star) found out, he ordered them to send the wide screen TV and bunks back to garrison. The AF refused, and the CSM formed an armed detail of MPs and Intel pukes (I was on the 60) to force them to load it all up and send it back. They were so pissed that most of their unit snuck back as well, leaving a couple of fighter jocks and a grizzled chief master sergeant. Things actually ran more smoothly then.

The Air Force does a good job at delivering ordinance. They do a less perfect job (based on my own limited experience) of delivering cargo. Lets face it, few people join the Air Force out of any sense of being warriors, many of the pilots excepted. To change the AF would call for a very fundamental change at the very roots of the organization, and we already have a Marine Corps. I say leave it alone, although some of the AF's creature comforts are taken to the extreme, and need to be cut back for the sake of real operational activity. The fixation on living conditions does detract from the real mission and impacts the ability to deliver beans and bullets to the guys who need them.

For all you AF guys who hung in there with us in the mud, rain and snow, thanks. For those who weren't, next time, nuke our enemies so the dirty guys in the mud can go home sooner.

You guys keep making my point for me!  You AF guys were/are treated like royalty when compared to the other services, and yet you squeal like a pig caught under the gate when a situation gets uncomfortable.  While I was at Iwakuni, a C-141 dropping of dependants from a Korean shopping spree was grounded due to ice.  The AF Officers were taken over to the BOQ and the AF Enlisted were brought over to the squadbay where I was living.  They took one look around and left.  They whined about the terrible conditions where they would have to spend the night to their Officers over the phone, and then spent the night at a luxury hotel in town for $400 per room per night.  One man to a room.  They were E-3's and E-4's.  It was only one night!  We lived in that squad bay for six months and were damn happy not to be sleeping outside.  They were nothing but a bunch of spoiled Mama's boys!

Now that was a professional and objective well put post.

I can live with that assessment.

Good job!

Muhahahahaha...Now who is the Cry baby? I believe we are getting to the root of this problem.

YOUR JEALOUS!!!!!!!![img]http://home.earthlink.net/~husshsd/banana.gif[/img]

On a side note.

When we are done bitchin about bitchin, I hope we can go shootin some time.

Just a few thoughts and observations.  I am a former NCO in the U.S. Air Force (Security Police/K-9).  I am also the son of a 28-year Airborne Infantry officer, so I have seen the military from both sides.

The Air Force definitely had more creature comforts than other branches of the military, but there is a difference between giving someone a lot of stuff and actually giving a damn about them.  With one exception (LTC Killeen, God bless ya boss!), my commanding officers couldn't have cared less whether I lived or died, as long as the paperwork was filled out properly.  In contrast, it was a rare day that my mother prepared dinner on Thanksgiving or Christmas, because we almost always ate dinner in the mess with the unit.  To my father, the people in his unit weren't "assets", they were [i]his men[/i], and he gave them the respect that they deserved, something I found sadly lacking in the Air Force.

Now, to those of you who think that the Air Force cannot endure adverse conditions; when I was stationed at Kunsan AB, ROK, my first barracks was a condemned building.  [b]Literally.[/b]  The day they moved us out of it (five months into my tour), they tore the building down.  We had to deal with cockroach infestations (I had to throw out half of my cassette tapes when we moved), rats, and rotting floors.  During alerts (which we had at least twice a month), we slept on cots in the K-9 building.  During the winter, when the weather got too bad, we put our dogs up at the kennels [i]and went back out on post[/i].  So please forgive me if I have little patience with those who say that the U.S. Air Force (at least those in the Combat Arms) can't hack it.

Are a lot of airman whiny sunzabitches who act like civilians-in-uniform?  Yes, but I have seen some marines (non-combat types) who couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.  The bottom line is that we are all in this together, fighting for a common goal, and all of this bullshit about which service has it better than other services is just that; [b]bullshit[/b].

Of course, that's just my opinion.  I could be wrong.

Where exactly did you get that info.  I remember the Brits that were killed in the Warrior IFV and that was caused by a Maverick hit (fired from an A-10) the survivors were even on Oprah a year or so latter. From ever source I have read there were only 18 M1 tanks damaged in action in the Gulf mostly from mines. Nine were permanent losses, and another nine suffered repairable damage. Those numbers include the 1 that was destroyed via a Maverick hit and 1 Iraqi BMP that got a flank shot that hit the ammo storage.  

But really no one is blaming anyone on those because those were mistakes, I think everyone can tell the difference between a mistake in combat and a policy that causes mistakes to happen.